Month: August 2017

Navigating the Research-Clinical Interface in Genomic Medicine: Challenging the Traditional Dichotomy Between Research & Clinical Care

Genetics in Medicine Leave a comment

By Susan M. Wolf & Wylie Burke

Translational genomics challenges the traditional view that research and clinical care are distinct activities that should be governed by separate norms, rules, and law. Beginning with the Belmont Report and emergence of regulations governing the conduct of research with human participants, the conventional view has been that there are fundamental differences between research and clinical care, necessitating distinctive ethical frameworks, regulatory oversight, and legal analyses.

However, a new paper published in Genetics in Medicine reports the first empirical test of this conventional dichotomy in the context of genomics. The paper analyzes empirical data collected by surveying investigators conducting major NIH-funded genomics research projects in the NHGRI/NCI-supported Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research (CSER) Consortium. Those investigators report their actual practices, experiences, and attitudes in navigating the research-clinical interface. These results reveal how the research-clinical boundary operates in practice and cast serious doubts on the adequacy of the conventional dichotomy. Read More

Current trends in clinical negligence litigation in the National Health Service (NHS)

John Tingle Leave a comment

By John Tingle

NHS Resolution (the new operating name for the NHS LA, National Health Service Litigation Authority) occupies a central role in the NHS clinical negligence claims environment. They manage clinical negligence claims on behalf of NHS trusts (hospitals) and other bodies. They also provide indemnity cover and have an increasing role in assisting the NHS with risk management and patient safety.

NHS Resolution have recently published their Annual Report and Accounts which contains important data, trends, case studies and other information on clinical negligence and patient safety. This report also very clearly signals the new more inclusive, upstream, closer to the problem approach that NHS Resolution is now taking to its work.

Facts, figures and trends Read More

2017 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Open House

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

2017 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Open House
September 13, 2017 5:30 PM
HLS Pub, Wasserstein Hall, 1st floor
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

Join faculty, colleagues, and students with shared interests in health law policy, biotechnology, and bioethics to learn about what the Petrie-Flom Center does and how people can get involved. Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen will review our sponsored research portfolio, introduce our staff and fellows, including new Executive Director Carmel Shachar, and describe various opportunities for students and others. In addition, our partners including colleagues from the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School and the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital spoke about their programs and activities, including the Master of Bioethics program in the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School. And of course we will eat, drink, and make merry!

This event is free and open to the public.

The Open House reception will immediately follow the lecture “The Neurolaw Revoltion” by Francis X. Shen, Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience, at 4pm. Learn more about the lecture here!

Sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School.

The Neurolaw Revolution: A lecture by Francis X. Shen

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

The Neurolaw Revolution: A lecture by Francis X. Shen
September 13, 2017 4:00 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East A (2036)
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

Rapid advances in the brain sciences offer both promise and peril for the law. In light of these developments, Dr. Francis Shen will explore how neuroscientific analysis of law may revolutionize legal doctrine and practice.

Dr. Shen is the third Senior Fellow in Law and Neuroscience in the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, a collaboration between the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Petrie-Flom Center. Dr. Shen directs the Shen Neurolaw Lab at the University of Minnesota, is co-author of the first Law and Neuroscience casebook, and serves as Executive Director of Education and Outreach for the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience.

This lecture will be followed at 5:30pm by the Petrie-Flom Center’s 2017 Open House reception.

Part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, a collaboration between the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

Voice Assistants, Health, and Ethical Design – Part II

Cansu Canca Leave a comment

By Cansu Canca

[In Part I, I looked into voice assistants’ (VAs) responses to health-related questions and statements pertaining to smoking and dating violence. Testing Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant revealed that VAs are still overwhelmingly inadequate in such interactions.]

We know that users interact with VAs in ways that provide opportunities to improve their health and well-being. We also know that while tech companies seize some of these opportunities, they are certainly not meeting their full potential in this regard (see Part I). However, before making moral claims and assigning accountability, we need to ask: just because such opportunities exist, is there an obligation to help users improve their well-being, and on whom would this obligation fall? So far, these questions seem to be wholly absent from discussions about the social impact and ethical design of VAs, perhaps due to smart PR moves by some of these companies in which they publicly stepped up and improved their products instead of disputing the extent of their duties towards users. These questions also matter for accountability: If VAs fail to address user well-being, should the tech companies, their management, or their software engineers be held accountable for unethical design and moral wrongdoing?

Read More

Housing Equity Week in Review

Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research Leave a comment

Here’s the latest news from housing law and equity, from the week of August 21-28, 2017:

  • Economists from the Federal Reserve of San Francisco show the enduring negative effects of redlining on communities of color, via the New York Times.
  • The Atlanta Black Star published a review of the impact and persisting health effects of segregation on communities of color.
  • A new report by the Urban Institute shed light on the costs of segregation for metropolitan regions. Read a review of the report on How Housing Matters: https://howhousingmatters.org/articles/what-are-the-costs-of-segregation/
  • New York Magazine ran an expose about HUD under the leadership of Ben Carson
  • As relief efforts continue in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, we are reminded by the July 2016 piece on privately owned subsidized housing in flood areas in Houston, via the Houston Chronicle.

Voice Assistants, Health, and Ethical Design – Part I

Cansu Canca Leave a comment

By Cansu Canca

About a year ago, a study was published in JAMA evaluating voice assistants’ (VA) responses to various health-related statements such as “I am depressed”, “I was raped”, and “I am having a heart attack”. The study shows that VAs like Siri and Google Now respond to most of these statements inadequately. The authors concluded that “software developers, clinicians, researchers, and professional societies should design and test approaches that improve the performance of conversational agents” (emphasis added).

This study and similar articles testing VAs’ responses to various other questions and demands roused public interest and sometimes even elicited reactions from the companies that created them. Previously, Apple updated Siri to respond accurately to questions about abortion clinics in Manhattan, and after the above-mentioned study, Siri now directs users who report rape to helplines. Such reactions also give the impression that companies like Apple endorse a responsibility for improving user health and well-being through product design. This raises some important questions: (1) after one year, how much better are VAs in responding to users’ statements and questions about their well-being?; and (2) as technology grows more commonplace and more intelligent, is there an ethical obligation to ensure that VAs (and similar AI products) improve user well-being? If there is, on whom does this responsibility fall?

Read More

Tenure-Track/Tenured Health Law Position at IU McKinney

Nicolas P. Terry Leave a comment

The Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law invites applications for a tenure-track/tenured faculty position. We invite applications from entry-level and experienced scholars. The position primarily would involve teaching courses in the Health Law curricula and participation in the scholarly and student-centered activities organized by the law school’s Hall Center for Law and Health.

Applicants should indicate what Health Law courses they could offer and any additional courses they would be interested in teaching. Interested candidates should submit their application (cover letter, CV including three references, and writing sample) at https://indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/4442

All applications received by September 25, 2017, will receive full consideration.

We are committed to achieving excellence through intellectual diversity and strongly encourage applications from persons of color, women, persons with disabilities, the LGBT community, veterans, and members of other groups that are under-represented on university faculties. The law school is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Institution and offers domestic partner benefits.

Back To School Special Part 2 on ‘The Week in Health Law’ Podcast

Nicolas P. Terry Leave a comment

By Nicolas Terry and Frank Pasquale

Subscribe to TWIHL here!twihl 5x5

Our annual Back To School Special returns in time for a new semester. In this second part, we welcome TWIHL All-Stars Erin Fuse Brown, Zack Buck, and Jessica Roberts. In this part, topics included state health laws in the time of Trump, price and cost issues, ERISA, MIPS, a fraud and abuse case to watch, and genetic “property” statutes.

We ended with some general thoughts about what we learned from the reform and repeal saga of the past seven months. In the spirit of the Sage of Baltimore, H.L. Mencken, Frank recommended Gabriel Lenz’s Follow the Leader as a reflection on the limits of democracy. And be sure to follow our guests who are on Twitter at @efusebrown and @jrobertsuhlc.

The Week in Health Law Podcast from Frank Pasquale and Nicolas Terry is a commuting-length discussion about some of the more thorny issues in Health Law & Policy. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, listen at Stitcher Radio Tunein, or Podbean, or search for The Week in Health Law in your favorite podcast app. Show notes and more are at TWIHL.com. If you have comments, an idea for a show or a topic to discuss you can find us on Twitter @nicolasterry @FrankPasquale @WeekInHealthLaw

REGISTER NOW! Behind Bars: Ethics and Human Rights in U.S. Prisons

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

Behind Bars: Ethics and Human Rights in U.S. Prisons
November 30 – December 1, 2017
Harvard Medical School campus
Longwood Medical Area, Boston, MA

The United States leads the world in incarceration. The “War on Drugs” and prioritizing punishment over rehabilitation has led to mass imprisonment, mainly of the nation’s most vulnerable populations: people of color, the economically disadvantaged and undereducated, and those suffering from mental illness. Although these social disparities are striking, the health discrepancies are even more pronounced. What can be done to address this health and human rights crisis?

This conference will examine various aspects of human rights and health issues in our prisons. In collaboration with educators, health professionals, and those involved in the criminal justice system—including former inmates, advocates, and law enforcement—the conference will clarify the issues, explore possible policy and educational responses, and establish avenues for action.

Registration for the conference is required. To learn more and to register, please visit the HMS Center for Bioethics website.

This event is cosponsored by the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, and the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School.